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When it comes to offering bang for your buck, Canyon's direct sales model is hard to beat, but the Spectral CF 8.0 EX manages to deliver a mighty impressive ride from its lightweight carbon frame as well as a flawless selection of kit for the money.

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By cutting out the bike shop and selling online, the Spectral is covered in the sort of bike jewellery that you'd expect to find on a substantially more expensive bike, never mind one that has a full carbon fibre frame for a smidgen under three grand. That means it's a whole load lighter than most of its rivals in this price range, most of whom use aluminium frames - or at a stretch a composite front triangle. 

The 150mm travel RockShox Pike fork gets the expensive RCT3 damper

The Spectral is very much a classic trail bike, with 150mm of travel up front paired to 140mm from the four-bar suspension at the rear, both ends using RockShox units. The Pike RCT3 fork is a great bit of kit, with external rebound and low-speed compression damping adjustment, as well as a three position lockout lever. The chassis is stiff enough to track true through even the roughest terrain, while the damping keeps everything under control nicely. That's paired with a top end Monarch RT3 rear shock with high volume Debonair air sleeve. Again, you get rebound damping and three position lockout adjustment and while it's not as plush or capable as the piggyback-equipped Monarch Plus, it's still supple and well-controlled enough to dispatch all but the roughest and longest descents with ease.

Wishlist kit

Ergon lock on grips provide a decent touch point

Elsewhere, the rest of the kit is similarly functional. SRAM provides most of it, with four-piston Guide RS brakes with a 200mm rotor up front and a 180mm item at the back. They offer oodles of stopping power and it's simple to adjust the levers to your preference, with tool-free dials for reach and contact point.

A single ring RaceFace Turbine crankset provides the go

The drivetrain is an 11spd SRAM GX setup, with a single, direct-mount 30T ring on a set of RaceFace Turbine cranks. It offers enough gearing range to do pretty much anything you fancy thanks to a 10-42T spread on the cassette, but the relatively small chainring does bias it towards climbing performance rather than flat-out pedalling speed - which I imagine will suit most people looking at this bike just fine. the only real grumble is that the chainset spins on a Press Fit bottom bracket, which tend to be prone to excessive wear and noise.

Quality contact points

The DT Swiss wheelset is superb for the money

The DT Swiss M1700 wheelset is another high point. The 30mm internal width gives a great shape to the tyres and experience has shown that it can take a serious beating without any ill effect. Talking of tyres, the pairing of a Maxxis High Roller 2 front and Minion Semi Slick rear is a spot on combination for trail centres and most natural riding. Up front, there's loads of predictable grip from the sticky triple compound and at the rear, rolling resistance is minimised thanks to the shallow centre tread but there's decent bite once you get it leant over. Unless speedway style sideways riding is your thing, you might want to switch the rear come the muddy season however. Either way, both are tubeless ready and so are the rims, so you can drop a chunk of weight the moment you pull the bike out of the box.

The clever bit behind the headtube is designed to stop your bars hitting your top tube in a crash

This attention to detail follows through onto the contact points, with a quality Renthal bar and stem up front. The bars 760mm width provides decent leverage, while the dinky 50mm stem keeps handling precise rather than ponderous. A trail bike is barely a trail bike without a dropper post, so it's a good thing there's an internally routed RockShox Reverb Stealth with 125mm of travel. The SDG Circuit saddle atop it might split opinion - personally, I didn't find the overly flat shape very comfortable, but your buttocks might feel differently.

The handling

The full carbon fibre frame is amazing to see for this sort of money

All this well thought our kit means that riding the Spectral is as pleasant an activity as you might expect. The 12.6kg weight means that it's a pleasure to climb and that wheelset means it accelerates like a bike with much less travel. It's pretty well mannered for a 140mm travel bike when you're sat and spinning too, without excessive bob, though you can always lock the shock out should you wish to. 

The frame has a reach of 455mm in a size large, which is fairly middle of the road when it comes to trail bike geometry. It's certainly not short by any means, but there are more aggressive options on the market - indeed, Canyon offers the longer travel Strive with a longer 'Race' geometry option, something I'd love to see offered for this bike. One good point is that the effective seat angle of 74.5º - though somewhat less as an actual figure due to a kinked seattube - keeps your weight forwards on steep climbs, allowing you to weight the front better than you might otherwise.

Our only quibble is that the frame geometry is fairly conservative

When it comes to weighting the front end, I found the 145mm tall headtube too high, even with the stem slammed as low as it'd go on the clever, top tube protecting headset spacer. In conjunction with a fairly steep 67º head angle, it's the one flaw in an otherwise flawless package. I couldn't help feeling that the Spectral would will you on to even sillier speeds and more technical trails if the slightly perched front end didn't confuse communications about grip levels from the front tyre.

Splitting hairs aside, the Spectral is still an incredibly competent trail machine. The suspension offers a good balance of pedalling control, mid-stroke support and bottom out resistance - especially if you throw some volume spacers into the shocks at either end - and overall the bike offers very well rounded handling that'll allow you to take on everything from the odd enduro race to all-day cross-country adventures without breaking a sweat. Did I mention what superb value it is again? 

The Spectral is a very competent trail bike - and a bargain to boot

While my personal tastes have me wishing for a more aggressive Race version of the bike, in reality, most people would start looking at the longer travel Strive if they're that way inclinded. Regardless, at this money, the Spectral CF really is the trail bike to beat.